really fine: when, if they can but present you with low, and often dirty images, instead of such as are noble and beautiful, yet in such a manner, as strongly to put you in mind of the difference, all the way, they are greatly conceited of their own ingenuity. Where any of these have real humour in them, it must arise from some particular occasion; and is by no means inherent in that kind of composition*

But while little wits think, that lowering and debasing the sublime, is being witty, those, who with an exalted genius, have a sportive liveliness of temper, can find means of ennobling their easiest and lightest compositions. Of all people Mr. Prior has succeeded the best, in this way, if he had not, now and then, allowed his pen too much licence for the demureness of the muse. As Homer's dreams were the dreams of Jupiter, so Prior's gaieties are the sportings of Apollo: and where he in

* Such also was the opinion of her friend Mrs. Carter, who had so great a dislike to parodies and travesties that she could rarely be persuaded to read them, and when she did received no amusement from them. She used to say that they shewed a squint or perversion of mind in the author, which hindered him from seeing the beautiful or sublime in its true colours.

troduces his fabled deities, in a mirthful scene, it is not by depressing them to the level of merry mortals, but by employing (to use the phrase of an excellent modern author) a new species of the sublime that has, hitherto, "received no name."

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There is a celebrated passage in Longinus, in which he prefers, upon the whole, a mixture of striking faults and beauties, to the flat correctness of an uncensurable, laboured author. One of the books which, to those, who for want of translations can know little of. Isocrates and Demosthenes, has most convincingly proved the justness of this determination, is Dr. Barrow's Sermons, who seems most exactly to answer what Longinus says of the irresistible Greek orator. His ex

pressions are frequently singular, and though crouded together, are so poured out from the abundance of one of the best hearts, that the finest turned periods are insipid in comparison. His genius too, whatever were the littlenesses of language, in those days, was certainly poetical and noble and his imagination so warmed and delighted with the fairest view of every thing in the scheme of Providence, that religion wears, through every page of his, its proper grace.

ESSAY VIII.

On Prior's Henry and Emma.

To enliven an airing, the other morning, Prior's Henry and Emma was read aloud to the company and the different sentiments they exprest upon it, determined me, to put down my own upon paper, as that Poem has always been a favourite with me, and yet wants, I think, a good deal of explanation, and ex

cuse.

The tale is introduced, in a way so much more interesting, than one commonly meets with, in pastoral dialogues; with circumstances of such tenderness and delicacy, and images so smiling and engaging, that one is concerned, before his characters have said a word, to have them keep up to the ideas, which partial imagination has formed of each. That of Emma is distinguished by something so peculiarly mild and affectionate, that if we do not attend to this, as her chief characteristic, we shall be apt to be surprized at many of her most

beautiful sentiments, as too different from the common ways of thinking on such occasions.

Emma susceptible of soft impressions, beyond what were to be wished in a character, where it set up for a general pattern, her soul entirely turned to those tender attachments, that are not inconsistent with strict virtue, had long been wooed with every irresistible art by an accomplished youth, whose virtues and excellencies could not but discover themselves in such a space of time, on a thousand occasions. By the characters given on each side, their passions seems to have been grounded on a just esteem: and the known truth, and goodness of Henry, had produced in her mind, such an unlimited confidence, that it was impossible she could suspect him of any crime. To try her constancy, he accuses himself, in the harshest terms, as a murderer: but it was easy for Emma's heart to furnish him with sufficient excuses. The wild unsettled state of the island, in those early times, torn by so many, and so fierce factions, involved the young and brave, in perpetual bloodshed. What was called valour in one party, would, in the other, be branded as murder. In those days, the vast forests

were filled with generous outlaws: and the brave mixt with the vile, from a likeness of fortune, not of crimes *.

I have dwelt upon this, because, at first reading, it offended me to imagine, that Emma should be so unmoved with a supposition of her lover's guilt, and continue her affection, when she must have lost her esteem. That point, I think, is now cleared up: but I am extremely sorry, that to prevent all scandal, Prior did not alter a few lines, in the answer she makes him, to his open declaration of inconstancy. In spite of all prejudice, there is certainly a want of all spirit and delicacy in it. If what he told her was fact, he could not be faultless, nor could her affection continue to be innocent. The same mild benevolence. to her rival, might surely have been exprest without the extravagance of desiring to attend

* An ingenious conjecture of Dr. Whitaker, that Henry Clifford, first Earl of Cumberland, was the hero of " the "Nut-brown Maid," cannot be supported, because that ballad was printed in 1502, when Henry Clifford was only nine years of age. There is however some reason to suppose that his father Henry, Lord Clifford, might be the Poet's Henry. For this curious and interesting enquiry, see Censura Literaria, Vol. VII. Article XX.